


Exiting The Arena

by Raven_Cromwell



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Cromwell/pseuds/Raven_Cromwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fine way for a prospective Minister to behave, hovering like a damned vulture over Cornelius's twitching corpse, she’d wanted to shout all day.  But she couldn’t throw stones, not when there wasn’t a guarantee she’d be better in his position; the public wanted blood after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exiting The Arena

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tetleythesecond for the 2011 round of HP_Footballbets. Tetley, thank you for giving me the chance to write this little ficlet. Examining Amelia’s motivations was an absolute joy, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them. And to my beta, who came through marvelously on this at a time when I really wasn't capable of editing, a thousand thanks; this text is inexpressablely better because of your help.

Exiting The Arena

July 2nd 1996

Minerva’s thigh brushed hers under the table as the first spoonful of bisque passed her lips. She felt her appetite, nearly absent for weeks, come roaring back. And as she watched Minerva’s mouth curve in that feline smile of satisfaction, food wasn’t nearly the only thing she wanted to devour.

The bisque was thick and creamy, better than any Amelia had ever tasted at Muggle or wizarding establishments. But then, it always was when the majority of ingredients had been conjured from Minerva’s wand.

Minerva’s hand grasped a piece of the crusty brown bread, and Amelia’s mouth went dry as she dipped her knife in the honey butter and spread it across the surface in slow, even strokes, keeping her eyes fixed on Amelia all the while.

“We’ve got fennel salad with goat cheese and lamb chops after that, with some of the cloud berries Albus brought back from his trip to Oslo for after,” she said, and Amelia felt the last of the tension in her shoulders evaporate.  
Amelia'd barely put down her briefcase earlier that evening, before Minerva had been wrapping her arms tight around her shoulders and murmuring: “Nothing’s set in stone. If you have regrets, you can still change your mind. And don’t you give me that look, Amelia Bones. This subject isn’t closed, and I intend to have an answer from you tonight as to why you said no, or I’ll stand over you at the Ministry while you put your name back in the running.” Clearly, she’d felt Amelia’s muscles, drawn dragon heart string tight under her waistcoat, and her voice had softened. “But it can wait for later,” was all she’d said before turning on her heel and vanishing in to the depths of the kitchen for the next two hours.

“You know me too well,” Amelia said now, squeezing the thigh that had brushed hers a moment before. She wondered why in the world she’d ever been so unnerved by explaining this to Minerva. No one seeing the brusque, no-nonsense Transfiguration teacher within the confines of the classroom would expect her to be brushing another woman’s thigh under a table, or slaving away in the kitchen to make dinner for that woman because she was clearly troubled, for that matter, she thought wryly. Minerva had plenty of her own contradictions. She would understand and accept Amelia’s decision, with all its inherent contradictions, once she steeled herself to explain it.

It was her appreciation of Amelia’s contradictions, both those she embodied and those she chose to surround herself with that had told Amelia Minerva was the one so very many years ago. The one to bring to the still waters and love there, even if, sometimes, the waters got damned choppy.  
She’d always remember a particular shelf in her old library at Bones Manor, where the French edition of Ida Saint Elme’s memoirs crowded Gellert Grindelwald’s slim volume to the wall. She’d brought Minerva to meet her parents, and they’d retreated in to the library to avoid the rage that had come as swiftly as storm clouds in a summer sky when Amelia’s theoretical love of women had suddenly become very real with the arm she’d looped through Minerva’s to give her a proper escort in to the Manor and the kiss on her lips she’d not known her parents had seen.

“This is my favorite section,” Amelia'd said, leading her to the shelves that overlooked the French doors on to the balcony.

“I can tell,” Minerva'd said, looking at the placement of the Grindelwald memoir.

“Father got it for research purposes and then couldn’t quite bear to part with it, filthy as we all think it is. It being such a rare book and all that.” She'd barely suppressed the urge to snarl.

It was times like that, when his Ravenclaw tendencies reared up over dark related research that Amelia had been desperately glad to have been in Hufflepuff like her mother.

“No matter,” Minerva'd said crisply, and Amelia'd stared at her. “The bastard’s finally where he belongs, crowded out by a woman who did her best for all people, Muggles and wizards alike. Poetic justice, it seems to me, though from what Albus said, he doesn’t have enough of a grasp on irony to appreciate it.”

^^^

Minerva’s fingers intertwined with hers, bringing her back from her thoughts.

“I always thought it would be a good day when Fudge was brought down,” she murmured.

“It is a good day. That man made pomposity, talking about anything but the issue at hand, and trying to overwhelm you with so much information you forgot what your original question was when he couldn’t prevaricate synonymous with wisdom to the public. The way you told me he reported the imported sphinxes and dragons to the Muggle Prime Minister, babbling out a slew of magical terms and then vanishing before the man could get his feet under him is shameful, Amelia. Anyone will be better than that. It’ll be good to finally perhaps have someone like Millicent Bagnold who’ll give us some true wisdom, and perhaps a bit of transparency, too, though I’m wondering if that’s too much to ask, as corrupt as so many of the Departments have become.”

“And next week may be the last time we’ll have to hear his complete lack of color coordination praised as a unique fashion style.” That made Amelia laugh, as it was intended too. He’d worn that lime-green bowler with everything, no matter how ridiculous it made him look.

“I don’t know if this’ll be everything you and Dumbledore want, Minerva. Scrimgeour, he’s the one at the head of the pack now that I’ve bowed out…he’s a good man, under the right circumstances.”

“But you don’t think he’ll be good enough? Is Scrimgeour the reason you pulled out, Amelia? I know, being Head of the Aurors, he probably knows personal details of our relationship; I can’t imagine your bodyguards keeping their mouths shut around their superior. But if he’s trying to blackmail you Amelia.”

“Rufus? No, he’s not trying to blackmail me.” Amelia sighed. “Not that that makes me any less disgusted with him at the moment.”

“Why?”

“He’s like a vulture, hovering over a twitching corpse, just waiting for it to breathe its last. And he wants this badly enough I’m afraid he’s going to start gnawing while he’s still breathing, as it were.”

“I thought you said he was a good man.”

“Oh, he’s got good intentions, even some good ideas. But the public wants another Barty, and he’s more than willing to give them one, on the surface at least.”

“Surely not, not after everything that came out about Barty, all his hypocrisy and double standards and-“

“The public wants blood, Minerva. They want to know that the people hurting them are going to have a chunk gone by the end of it all, and that we won’t pussy-foot around to find them. Trouble is, right now, we can’t find anybody. Instead of explaining that and giving an outline of what measures we’re taking, not everything of course, but at least the bare bones, I’m terribly afraid he’s going to throw them a sacrifice. Someone small enough it’ll be plausible they joined up to get more power, a better position. And he’ll let them be vilified and torn to shreds.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He made this speech about how the Aurors are looking at everyone in our society. That no one will be small enough, insignificant enough, to escape the radar. Put a pretty venire on it for Cornelius, said it was new orders. But everyone knows the people Cornelius has his eye on-“

“The old Purebloods, like the Malfoys.”

“Exactly. So, essentially, what he’s really doing is letting the public know what he intends to do if they pick him.”

“Merlin help us. We all know Fudge’s sacking will go through, but there’s always a chance it might not. He should at least let the chair get cold before he’s asking to take a seat.”

“They’re like a pack of jackals after a kill,” she said softly. She’d hoped never too see the public in the sort of vicious frenzy Barty had whipped them up too again, where justice was far less important than seeing someone scream, like causing pain was going to make yours go away. She’d thought perhaps they’d finally learned their lesson, with how badly his son had gone wrong, had thought they would pass that lesson on to their children, had even, in her less cynical moments believed Barty’s son might be just the thing they needed to expose the filthy consequences of prejudice and begin to reverse the worst of the ones that’d let that bastard rise the first time.

The depth of how badly she’d miscalculated almost didn’t bear thinking of, or wouldn’t, if Amelia were a different sort of person.

“I know Cornelius’s paranoia and refusal to listen made it possible for that bastard to gain a foothold it won’t be easy to shake…but making him bleed, even metaphorically, isn’t going to make the bloodshed that’s coming any less painful” Knowing the Death Eaters who killed Edgar and her nephews and nieces were suffering under Dementors in Azkaban didn’t make waking up thinking of some anecdote she simply had to share, how his blue eyes would light up, and the dimples bloom on his cheeks, and then remembering that his dimples had been hidden in the great spray of blood across his face, and they’d never share anything again any easier.

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “You keep asking me why I took myself out of the arena. There’s your answer, Minerva. They don’t want fairness and justice, they want blood. And they’ll boot out the person who tries to be just quicker than they did Fudge if that person can’t also produce their sacrifice. I wouldn’t last half a year if I couldn’t do that, and I won’t stoop to giving them innocents, Minerva. Rufus and Gawain Robards are two of the most dedicated Aurors I’ve ever seen, and they’re brilliant working together, running the Office, and they can’t find a damn thing. It’s like they turn in to wisps of fog the moment anyone gets close. It’ll come in time. They’ll get careless; they always do. But it wouldn’t come in enough time to save my career, and I won’t have us changing Ministers the way Narcissa Malfoy changes her decor. Scrimgeour'd get it anyway in the end, and I’d rather throw my weight behind him, do what I’m good at, and try to curb the worst of his excesses.”

“He’ll at least not try to undermine me the way Fudge constantly was, so I’ll have some leeway to maneuver. And Robards is level and calm and methodical. He’ll understand the sense in the orders I’m giving, and he’ll tell me if he thinks I’m being too soft and why, and I’ll try and listen.”

“I thought it might have been because of me…us,” Minerva said, taking a long swallow of the red wine that she’d just poured. “I’ll admit it’s been wonderful to have you in a position within the Ministry where you don’t have to be as discrete. But I know the Minister would be under the public eye far more. And Merlin knows you’re discrete around the students so we’ll ensure I don’t lose my career. I just wanted you to know…well, I’ll do whatever I have to to keep yours.”

She looked at Amelia over the top of her glass, eyes bright behind her square spectacles. “Sometimes I can’t quite believe how far women have come since we met. The students I’ll always be proudest of are the girls like Hermione Granger I know are going to go off and doing something truly wonderful, lay the groundwork for other women to do even more remarkable things. And since you’ve become head of Magical Law Enforcement, the Aurors and Hit Wizards are sliding toward equal numbers. I thought you’d have more room to advance that as Minister, and I didn’t want our relationship to stop that. I hadn’t realized how blood thirsty they were, how much taking up the post with them in this mood would make you become something you never wanted too.”

If there’s one thing Amelia wants to be remembered for, it’s the blazing smile of Belonna Harkness, the first female Auror trainee, as Amelia had guided her with a hand at her waist to her place in line. She’d been ramrod straight, posture absolutely perfect, and she’d astounded the class with her skill in the one on one duels with the instructors. It had been Amelia’s little “Pet project” having a female trainee, something the then head of MLE had granted his then chief Auror mostly to shut her up. There’d only been a trickle after Belonna for a time, carefully selected candidates who had to be twice as qualified as their male counterparts. But that’d changed over time, and now, it was as equal and open as she thought it was likely to get, in her life time anyway.

“Of course I thought about it, I had too,” she said after a while. “I…don’t think it would have been as much of a problem as you think. It’s a war, and people relax their standards during war. If they really believed I was the best person for the job, it’d be one of those things certain kinds of women tittered over in their coffee, the way Amelia Bones had to be a man, in all senses of the word, and certain sorts of men would mutter snide comments just loud enough I could hear, and not loud enough I could call them out on it, but I think that’s as far as it would go. There might be some nasty articles from types like Skeeter, but people'd be far more concerned with getting rid of Voldemort. Of course, I have to face the fact that I could be wrong, and end up like Rolanda.”

The fact that Rolanda and Griselda had been rather enthusiastic in their reunion after the first match of the World Cup in 94, when it’d actually looked like England might have a hope that season was undeniable. And people remembered it, especially once England had lost. Too busy proving how much more of a man she is than the bloke she replaced once they knew England had a shot, she lost us the cup, they’d whispered. She was lucky she’d been sitting amongst a group of trainees when that one bloke had pondered whether Rolanda had even tried to concoct a strategy for that last match, or if she’d been too busy rolling about with her hand between Griselda's legs…because if she’d been sitting alone, she’d have probably been facing far more time alone in her flat for the next three months than she relished.

“I can do far more good where I am now, and well, who knows how much time any of us will have. We’re neither of us small targets in this war, Minerva. And I’d rather spend my time open and proud with you beside me, if I’ve a choice in the matter.”

“You’re a brave, brilliant woman, Amelia Bones, and I love you more than I can say, and if either of us have anything to say about it, we’ll be open and proud for another fifty years,” she murmured. She stood, suddenly.

“We can put preserving charms on all this food,” she said, voice gone husky. “I’ve been wanting you for weeks, and you’re making it near impossible to resist tonight.”

“I was thinking at the beginning of dinner how much I wanted you, but I didn’t want…I wanted you to know how much I appreciated this.”

“There’s more than one way to show me that.” With a few flicks of her wand, the food was banished to the icebox, and she was reaching to pull Amelia from her chair. “Let’s make the best of whatever time we have, before you’re called away for some emergency, or I am.”

“As you wish.” She rose, extinguishing the lights, reaching through the darkness to grasp Minerva’s hand.


End file.
